Posted on April, 9, 2019 at 08:16 am
By Pius Rugonzibwa in Mwanza
THE Private Agricultural Sector Support (PASS) will dish out 184bn/- to potential local agricultural investors in the country to support them carry out commercial farming.
That is a continuation of financing boosts the organisation has extended for the past 18 years of its establishment in which it has provided around 713bn/- invested in over 929,000 projects countrywide.
Speaking to reporters over the weekend, PASS Managing Director Nicomed Bohay said in the period under review, the Organisation has worked with 15 financial institutions for a number of collaborations in its wake of empowering its target beneficiaries.
"The last 18 years has seen us working to support the agricultural sector and this year alone we will dish out around 184bn/- for the cause and target to reach not less than 200,000 local investors in the sector," said Mr Bohay.
According to him, through different financial supports and capacity building programmes PASS has managed to create employment of about 2 million Tanzanians through improved agricultural projects for the last 18 years as well.
He cited a number of upcoming programmes citing an ambitious establishment of Lease Finance Company that will soon be launched to support among others merchandised agricultural projects in the country.
The establishment of the company comes as Tanzania lags behind in lease financing, but according to Mr Bohay, Tanzania with not more than two lease finance companies so far, has a huge potential in the sector if it can borrow a leaf from countries like Nigeria which has more than 200 such companies.
"So plans are almost afoot for the establishment of the company worth over 1bn/- to start with while efforts will be made for more partners particularly banks to inject additional funds in the ambitious entity," he said.
Besides establishment of Lease Finance Company, Mr Bohay said he was of the view that Tanzania needs to seriously invest in tackling effects of climate change which has already cost the economy so dearly.
A team of around 50 PASS staff were here for the annual staff retreat where among others in the programme they paid a visit to the Bukumbi Elderly Camp in Misungwi District where they provided support of different items worth 5.3m/-.
The items were donated as part of the organisation's Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) and will support the elderly members at the camp for about three weeks.
Mwanza Regional Social Welfare Officer Kizito Wambura commended the move and appealed to other good Samaritans to support the elderly camp with 88 members including 16 children.
Source: Daily News